Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994)©Mathesis Publications

Articles

The Significance of1CCI~c1 Kciv~' li(O')~l1 in Parmenides Fr. 1.3

l.H. Lesher

Few of the problematic aspects of Pannenides' poem have proven more resis­tant to solution than the famous crux contained in the first sentence of his Fr. 1(following our best MS, N= Laur. 85.19, of Sextus' adversus Mathematicos vii111):

l1t1tOl 'tat J.lE <pEpoUcrlV, öcrov 't' E1tl 8uJ.lo<; b<avol,1tEJ.l1tOV, E1tEt J.l' E<; 6Öov ßilcrav 1tOAu<PllJ.l0V äyoucralÖatJ.lovo<;, ~ Ka'tu t1tav't' ä'tll t <pEpEl EiÖo'ta <pro'ta .'tTl <PEpoJ.lllv, 'tTl yap J.lE 1tOAu<ppacr'tOt <pEpOV 11t1tOtäpJ.la 'tt'tatvoucrat, KOUpat Ö' 6Öov ~YEJ.lOVEUOv.l

While a credible translation must await discussion of a half dozen difficultphrases (E1tl 8uJ.lo<; lKavot, 6Öov 1tOAu<PllJ.l0V, EiÖo'ta <pro'ta, 1tOAu<ppacr'tot 11t1tOt,KoUpat ,1YEJ.lovEUOV, as weIl as Ka'tu ... <pEpEt), the general sense of the sentenceseems clear enough: Parmenides relates how horses (mares, judging from thefeminine forms 'tai, äyoucral, and 'tl'taivoucrut), the ones that are now carryinghirn, were (at some earlier time) in the process of leading or escorting hirn whenthey brought and set hirn down on a roadway of a goddess that (the 't11 <PEpoJ.lllvin line 4 suggests that ~ refers to the road rather than to the goddess) carries 'aknowing man' KU-reX 1tav-r' ä-rll-at which point the neuter accusative plural form1tav'tu ('all things') combines with the nominative singular of the feminine nounä'tll ('distraction, blindness, heaven-sent folly') to render further translationimpossible.2 Two minor variants, 1tuv'ta'tll (in L) and 1tuv'tu 'til (in E<; and oth­ers), are equally devoid of meaning.

For more than fifty years, from the publication in 1912 of the third edition of

1 As printed in Diels and Kranz 1951, i 228, with two significant modifications: (1) in line 3, Iretain the original1tavt' ätll of N and mark it within obeli (as will be explained shortly, in 3rd andsubsequent editions DK printed 1tavt' äOtll); and (2) also in line 3, I retain the öa{llovo~ of Sextus'text rather than emending to öa{1l0vE~ (as proposed by Stein and Wilamowitz). DK's iota adscript hasalso been changed to iota subscript for the sake of consistency with passages quoted from otherauthors.

2 H. Tarrant's heroic attempt to defend ätll notwithstanding. On his account, 'the knowing man'is led-astray-by the goddess DelusionlDeception, and the pathway alluded to in Fr. 1 correspondswith the way of doxa ofFr. 8. But there are some major discrepancies: one whose v6o~ was enmeshedin appearances could not possibly qualify by Parmenidean standards as 'a knowing man'. The notionof a 'goddess of appearances', moreover, is inherently implausible (it is Zeus hirnself, so Od. xviii137 teIls us, who brings each day to mortals). We have every reason, then, to continue to contrastknowledge with deception, rather than to attempt to unite thenl.

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DK unti11968, it was widely supposed that N actually contained the phrase Kata1tavt' &crtT\- 'down to, along, on, or among all cities' , but A.H. Coxon disposedof that idea when he reported that DK's &crtT\ was actually a misreading of theMS, caused perhaps by a passing glance at the acrtot in the 1tOAu<ppacrtot in theadjacent line. Coxon' s claim that N contained &tT\ and not &crtT\ was subse­quently corroborated by Taran 1977; a photocopy ofLaur. 85.19. f. 124v. clearlyshowing the &tT\ has since been published in Coxon's 1986. Coxon 1968, 69 alsocommented that, 'The more percipient critics have realized that &crtT\ is difficultor impossible to defend, for it makes no good sense and is incompatible with1.27, according to which the way is a1t' aV8pOO1tffiV EKto~ 1tatou.' (Parmenides,in short, could not possibly have been alluding here to 'a knowing man' who,while he is being carried down to, or down along all cities, simultaneously travels'far from the beaten track of men'.)

The precedents identified for the phrase Kata 1tavt' &crtT\, moreover, havebeen few in number, on occasion problematic in their own right, and generallyquite distant from anything going on here in Parmenides' Fr. 1. DK ii 228n cited:UHAtE Ilup Öta 1tavt' &crtT\ vtcrEat-'Fire of the Sun go through all cities'(Orpheus Fr. 47.3)3; 1tOAArov Ö' aV8pOO1tffiV rÖEV &crtEa Kat VOOV Eyvro-'He sawthe cities and came to know the mind ofmany men' (Homer, Od. i 3); äcrtEa ö'aV8pOO1tffiV "rflcroJ.!at-'I will lead (you) to cities of men' (xv 82); crJ.!tKpa KatJ.!EyaAa &crtEa aV8pOO1tffiV E1tE~tOOV-'speaking of men's cities great and small'(Herodotus i 5); and Kat' avÖprov Kpaata ßaivEt-'she walks on the heads ofmen' (Iliad xix 93, for KU'ta. in the sense of 'on' or 'on top of'). To this listHeitsch added Od. xv 492; xvi 63-64; xix 170; and xxiii 267, each of which con­tains the phrase (spoken by Odysseus): 1tOAAa ßpotrov E1tt äcrtEa-'to manycities of mortals'. The phrase Kata 1tavt' &crtT\, then, cannot be found in any ofthe manuscripts, has yet to be shown to make good sense in this context, and iswithout a known parallel.

Nevertheless, 1 believe, and will proceed to argue, that a good case can bemade for restoring &crtT\ by emendation as the original text of Parmenides' Fr.1.3. The case will consist of showing how, when viewed in the larger context ofearly Greek poetry, Kata 1tavt' &crtT\ can be seen to possess an entirely naturalmeaning and, in concert with virtually every other feature in the opening lines ofFr. 1, contribute to a single, appropriate objective for the proem as a whole. Theimmediate question, then, is essentially a philological matter, but to answer it wemust consider how Parmenides' views, aims, and methods might have beenshaped by the artistic and intellectual traditions of his time and place.

I. Some Recent Proposals

Having disposed of Kata 1tavt' &crtT\, Coxon opted for more radical surgery byreviving Heyne's emendation of &(v)tT\(v)-'face to face', 'in front of, or (more

3 Gutlnie' s eaution (1969, ii 7) that the Grphie text was too uneertain to be added to the evideneehas been reeently reinforeed by H. Pelliecia.

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controversially) 'straight ahead'. By way of justification, Coxon cited /1. viii 399­400, where, so he claimed, 'going äv'tllv' is set in contrast with 'turning back':

ßacrK' t8t, ';'Ipt 'taXEta, 1taAtv 'tpE1tE J..LllÖ' ea äv'tllvepXEcr8(at)Go, swift Iris, turn (them) back and do not allow (them) to gostraight ahead ...

As Coxon 1986,9-10 noted, the surrounding passage had already provided Par­menides with more than one turn of phrase ('t11 pa Öt' au'tarov appears both at viii396 and in Parmenides Fr. 1.20; and Homer' s description of the gate throughwbich Hera and Athena travel on their way to meet Zeus is echoed in the descrip­tion Parmenide.s gives of the gate through which the youth passes on bis way tothe house of the goddess). Even more promisingly, a contrast between 'goingstraight ahead' and 'turning back' would be of unquestionable relevance to Par­menides' pbilosophy since the mortals he is about to pillory in bis Fr. 7.4-9 aredescribed as 'knowing nothing... wandering ... for whom the path of all things isbackward turning (1taAtv'tp01to<; ecr'tt KEAEU80<;). Although not mentioned byCoxon, the idea of the 'straight path of knowledge' also appears in Fr. 1 when atline 21 the maidens are said to {8u<; exov- 'keep straight' the path of the chariotand mares along the broad way' (cf. LSJ, s.v exro, 118). The Coxon-Heyne con­jecture of Ka'ta 1tav't' ä(v)'tll(v) is, therefore, not without its charms.

But, as has been argued by Renehan 1992, 401, it is also almost certainly notcorrect:

It is true enough that the LiddelI and Scott Greek Lexicontranslates äv'tllv in this passage of Homer by 'straightfor­wards " but they happen to be wrong. äv'tllv, cognate withav'tt, is an adverb that denotes 'opposition', 'confrontation';and in the Homeric passage in question the sense is 'do not per­mit them to come to confront me', as the words that followmake perfectly clear. There is no evidence that äv'tllv evermeans 'straight onwards' or 'straightforwards' and äv'tllv musttherefore be a false conjecture in Parmenides because it gives awrong sense. Any notion of 'confrontation' or 'opposition'would be devoid of meaning here.

That Renehan is right about the meaning of äv'tllv epXEcr8at is evident from thcfull context of /1. viii 399-400:

ßacrK' t8t, ';'Ipt 'taXEta, 1taAtV 'tpE1tE J..LllÖ' ea äv'tllvepXEcr8' 'OU rap KaAa cruvotcroUE8a 1t'tOAEUOVÖE.Go, swift Iris, turn (them) back but do not allow (them) äv'tllvepXEcr8(at), for we will not fiuingly join in combat.

The inappropriateness of combat among the immortals provides a very good rea­son for Iris 'not to allow them to come face to face' with Zeus, but no reasonwhatever for Iris not to allow the goddesses 'to go straight ahead' .

Setting aside the Coxon-Heyne Ka'ta 1tav't' ä(v)'tll(v), Renehan proposes thatwe return (or in the light of Coxon' s discovery concerning N, emend) to Ka'ta

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1tUV~' ä(cr)~ll, in light of the many significant paralleis between the journey ofOdysseus and that of Parmenides' youth, who, if not returning horne, has at leastembarked on a v6cr~0~ or journey of literally epic proportions.4 Especially signif­icant, Renehan claims, is Ode xv 82 (also cited in DK), in which appear not only&cr~Ea, but also horses (t1t1tou~), the notion of guiding (rrf11croJlat), as well asU1t1tEJl'VEt, a compound form of the verb 1tEJl1tro that appears in Parmenides' line2. Furthermore:

Of all the great men of the heroie age Odysseus was the mostfamous for 'intellect' and none other undertook a more excit­ing, and mysterious, journey, encompassing the world of boththe living and the dead. None other, in short, was a moreappropriate symbol, for Parmenides, of the man who knows ashe goes on his intellectual, and heroie journey. (Renehan 1992,403)

In general, there is no reason to dispute the claim (now weIl establishedthrough the efforts of Deichgräber, Taran, Havelock, Mourelatos, Coxon, Pfeif­fer, Böhme, and others) that the Homeric epics, especially the Odyssey, furnish agreat many valuable clues to the full meaning of the language and imagery inParmenides' poem. But the links between 1.3 and Ode xv 82 are tenuous at best.The recipient of the send-off in book 15 was in fact not Odysseus, butTelemachus; and he was there addressed and escorted not by an immortal god­dess, but by the eminently mortal Menelaus. It is not obvious, then, how an allu­sion to xv 67ff. could possibly have called to anyone' s mind the travels ofOdysseus. Parmenides' goddess, moreover, speaks of a single roadway that car­ries the knowing man over, down to, or among all cities; Odysseus, by contrast,was notoriously a 'wanderer along many ways' (cf. the archetypal characteriza­tion ofhim in the opening lines ofthe Odyssey: "Avöpa... 1tOA:6~po1tov,ö~ JlUAa1tOAAa/ 1tAuYX811 ... ).

More importantly, the theories of knowledge and reality Parmenides is about topropose make it highly unlikely that the phrases Eiö6~a <p&~a and Ka~a

1tuv~a...were meant to call to mind Odysseus and his extraordinary journey.5 InFr. 7, for example, Parmenides' goddess warns:

JlllÖE cr' E80~ 1tOAU1tEtpOV üÖov Ka~a ~r,VÖE ßtucr8ro,

4 Pelliccia 1988, 511 has argued that the repetition of the sequence 't(Xt" <pEp in v. 3 and -ta tn<pEp in vs. 3-4 rendered tatTl wholly cornlpt, and thereby undennined any attempt to plausibly recon­struct the original text. But, as Renehan 1992, 402 replies, 'while it is true that any letters may haveoriginally stood in verse 3, it is also true that the closer in appearance the originalietters were to thefollowing sequence, the more likely they were to become corrupted by attraction to those followingletters. In these circumstances an appeal to paleographical similarity is neither specious nor, indeed,conservative-if a word of similar appearance to the letters atll, one which seems wholly appropriatein context, suggests itself. Such a word is äcrtTl'.

5 I am assuming that many ofthe features in the proem foreshadow aspects ofthe account to fol­low. As Gallop 1984 puts it: 'The imagery of the chariot ride contains numerous pre-echoes of thegoddess's instruction... The setting of [Parmenides'] revelation neatly encapsulates its content.' Foran extended defense of this assumption, see Gallop 1984, and Lesher (forthcoming).

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vffiJ.lav ÜcrK01tOV OJ.lJ.la Kat ';X~Ecrcrav aKou11vKat yA&crcrav, Kp'ivat ÖE Aoycp 1tOAUÖllPtV EAEYXOVE~ EJ.lE8EV P118Ev'ta.Nor let custom born of much experience force you to ply along

this roadAn aimless eye and echoing earAnd tongue, but judge by discourse6 a much-contested testing7

Spoken by me.The goddess calls on the youth to resist the pull of custom or 'force of habit' tothink about 'what is' or 'that which is' ('to EOV) in the terms made available tohirn through his language and sensory experience. Our sense of sight (eye) is'aimless' (literally: 'untargetted') and our hearing (ear) and faculty of speech (the'tongue' of mortals) are 'echoing' in so far as they lead us to believe that 'whatis' admits of divisions and pluralities, comes into being and is destroyed, movesabout, and develops over time. The alternative she proposes, judging the EAEYXOC;or 'testing' by means of AOyoc; calls for clear and rigorous ,refleetion on the argu­ments she presents, not on extensive sensory experience. In short, the testimonyof eye, ear, and tongue through which Odysseus came to know the cities andvooc; of many is just the source of knowledge the goddess here directs the youthto ignore.

Furthennore, the much-wandering that is one of Odysseus' defining attributesis associated in Parmenides' poem not with truth and knowledge, but with errorand ignorance (cf. l1v Ö" ßpo'tOt EiÖo'tEC; oUÖEv/ 1tAa't'tov'tat, ÖiKpaVOt-'[theway] on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander, split-brained... ' Fr. 6.4-5).Few persons in fact could better symbolize the 'backward turning' path of mor­tals than the sailor who (at Ode x 45-55) approached the shoreline of his home­land only to be blown all the way back to his starting place on Aeolus' island.And while the world Parmenides is prepared to countenance as real is foreverlocked into absolute immobility and changelessness by the bonds of logicalnecessity (cf. Fr. 8.26-28), the world in which Odysseus maneuvered his quick­silver intellect (cf. the defining epithets, 1tOAU~l1'ttC;, 1tOAU~~xavoc;) had preciselythe opposite properties:

its field of application is the world of movement, of multiplic­ity and of ambiguity. It bears on fluid situations which are con­stantly changing and which at every moment combine contraryfeatures and forces that are opposed to each other... The many­colored, shimmering nature of metis is a mark of its kinshipwith the divided, shifting world of multiplicity in the midst ofwhich it operates. (Detienne and Vernant 1978,20-21)

In each of these ways, the qualities of Odysseus' intelligence as depicted in thestories of the Odyssey would be wholly out of character with the view of knowl-

6 Following the translation by Coxon 1986, 58.7 Cf. Pindar, Nemean 8.20; Baccylides, Fr. 14; discussed in Lesher 1984, and Coxon 1986, 192.

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edge Parmenides is about to champion.8 Considered in this light it would be hardto imagine a less appropriate model for Parmenides' 'knowing man' than themuch-wandering, slip-sliding, experiential-learning Odysseus.

Thus neither the Ka't<l 1tav't' &'t11 of our best MS, nor the Heyne-Coxon pro­posal to emend to Ka't<l 1tav't' &(v)'t11(v), nor Renehan's proposal to emend toKa't<l 1tav't' &(0)'t11 on the basis of various Homelic paralleIs can be consideredfree of problems. And while many other emendations have been proposed overthe years,9 none has yet gained wide acceptance.

So far in the present discussion two assumptions have been allowed to gounchallenged: (1) that 'the knowing man who is carried down to, or among allcities' must refer simply to Parmenides (or to the youth of the poem who is aboutto receive instruction from the goddess)lO; and (2) that since Parmenides soughtto incorporate elements of Homeric speech and imagery within in bis poem, weshould look to the Homeric epics for the key to solving our problem. But in hisimportant 1930 study Hermann Fränkel suggested an alternative to assumption(2) that, if pursued further, might also lead us to question assumption (1) as welle

Fränkel held (erroneously, as I have just suggested) that Ka't<l 1tav't' &0't11could be 'easily explained by the Homeric simile and passages such as tbEV&o'tEa' (1930, 37n). But he also drew attention to a number of striking similari­ties (first noted by August Böckh) between the imagery of the proem of Par­menides' Fr.l (lines 1-2, 5, and 17) and that of Pindar's Olympian vi. There, incelebrating the victory of Hagesias of Syracuse, Pindar made use of the complexsimile of chariot, guiding animals, pathway, and gates in speaking of his ownpoetic performance:

';'Q <J){v'tt<;, aAA<l t;Eu~OV 110" ).lOt 08Evo<; ;').ltOVffiV,~ 'taxo<;. ö<ppa KEAEU8cp 't' EV Ka8ap~

ßaOO).lEV ÖKXOV, lKffi).la{ 'tE 1tpo<; avOprovKat "(EVO<;·But Phintis yoke to me the strength of mulesWith all good speed, so that in the clear pathway,We may mount the chariot, and I may reach (the theme of

8 Pannenides' youth and Odysseus do, however, have in common the fact that both put variousclaims through a testing process in order to detennine the truth (in Homer: 1tEtparo; in Parmenides:the EA.EYXO~). But Odysseus was hardly unique in this respect (cf. book 7 when he he is put to the testby the Phaeacian men, and his duel of wits with Penelope in book 23). In any case the characteriza­tion of 'the man who knows' as one who is 'carried over, down to, or among all cities' does not itselfevoke the idea of a peirastic approach to knowledge.

9Ku'ta 1tav't' aO'tvll (Meineke, Jaeger, Becker, Mondolfo, Gallop); KUt1tav't' uu'tl, (Hermann);Ku'ta 1tav't' uu'ti1 (Mullach, DK 1st edn.); Ku'ta 1tav uu'ti1 (Lowe); KU'ta 1tav 1tav'tll (Böckh); Ku'ta1tav't' uiöll (Füllebom); Ku'ta 1tav'tu O'u<Pll (Brandis); Ku'ta 1tav'tu ~a8l) (Stein); Ku'ta 1t&v a1ta'tll~

(Bergk); Ku'ta 1tav't' E'tETt (Usener); Ku'ta 1tav'tu aöull (Karsten, Nestle, Riaux); Ku'ta 1tav'tu <pEpEt1tav't' eiöo'tu <ponu (Patin), and Ku'ta 1tav'tu 'tu'tl, (Wilamowitz, Bamett, DK 2nd edn., Eisler).

10 An assumption that underlies the claim (made by Jaeger 1947, 98; Coxon 1968, 69; and Pel­liccia 1988, 510), that being carried 'to all cities' is necessarily incompatible with 'travelling far fromthe beaten path of mortals ' .

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these) men And their descent. ..Fränkel then observed how:

Both [Pindar and Parmenides] put themselves in the hands ofsuprapersonal powers in the journey; the power of the Musescarries and promotes, directs and leads what the poet isengaged in. Pindar gives an additional touch by making theteam which 'leads the way' identical with the victorious mules.(p.2)

Because Fränkel assumed that Parmenides' poem had been composed by thetime Pindar had written 01. vi (and that Pindar would not be likely to borrowmaterial from Parmenides), he was led to postulate the existence of an earlierprototype on which both poets had drawn.

But, having just brought this interesting connection into view, Fränkel pro­ceeded to ignore it by electing to explain the meaning of the phrase 'a knowingman' in light of the Homeric passage in which the poet speaks of 'one who hasalready travelled many places and who thinks in his mind (voo<;), "Would that 1were here" or "Would that 1 were there'" (/1. xv 80 ff.). The thesis of Fr. 1.1-3could then be paraphrased as 'I travelled in the path of mentalpresentation ... which opens up every distant place to the man who knows' (p. 4).Thus, for Fränkel, as for Tanin (1965, 12) and Mansfeld (1964,225), who fol­lowed Fränkel's lead,ll the 'knowing man' had to be someone who had previ­ously travelled the way and was already familiar with the destination.

Fränkel' s account of the meaning of Eiöro<; here in Fr. 1.3 reflected his oft­stated view (see the reference at his n7) that all of the early Greek expressions forknowledge implied some prior perceptual awareness, most commonly throughthe sense of sight. But in addition to the many difficulties inherent in that thesisgenerally ,12 the reference here to a man who knows the destination because hehas already arrived at it makes for a jarring contrast with the implication of thegoddess' remark at 1.31 that at this point the youth does not kno~' (cf. the futureform J.UXe"OEUt-'you williearn'). To make the connection with /1. xv evenremotely plausible, moreover, we have to: (1) read &0111 not as a reference tocities, but rather to 'distant places' generally (even though not all cities are dis-

11 As perhaps do KRS 1983, 244 who contend that 'Parmenides already begins his joumey in ablaze oflight, as befits one who "knows"'; and Verdenius 1947 who follows Fränkel in reading Ka'ta1tav't' ä.a'tll as 'towards any place, up to the farthest end' (i.e., as a way of describing the power ofthinking-the goddess can lead a person anywhere one needs to go in order to gain knowledge). AsVerdenius noted, this more generalized version of the phrase would at least parallel Sextus' para­phrase of Parmenides' words: ö~ A6"{o~ 1tP01toJ..l1tOU oaiJ..lovo~ 'tp61tov E1tt 'tl,v a.1tav'trov ÜOll"{€tyv&atv-'this reason like a divine guide points the way to knowledge of aH things'. But I think Ka'ta1ta.v't' ä.a'tll has a more specific meaning in Parmenides' poem than is reflected in Sextus' summary.

12 The main question is whether during this earlier petiod, all the Greek expressions for knowl­edge were linked with the operation of the faculties of sense perception (a thesis defended on manyoccasions by Bruno Snell, Kurt von Fritz, and Fränkel; for critiques, see Barnes, Heitsch 1966,Hussey, and Lesher forthcoming, as weH as the discussion of the meaning of o{Oa under item 4 fol­lowing.

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tant); (2) assurne that Parmenides would have identified knolvledge withHomer's 'far-ranging thoughts' (even though in Fr. 6.8 he refers to thoughts ofknow-nothing mortals); and (3) assurne that Parmenides held that all knowledgewas grounded in direct perceptual acquaintance (even though Fr. 7 makes it clearthat this could not possibly have been the case).

It does not appear to have been noticed, either by Fränkel or by others, that themany points of correspondence between Parmenides' Fr. 1 and Pindar' sOlympian vi suggest a clearly apposite meaning for 'a knowing man' and 'downto all towns': both reflect the idea, expressed often in Greek lyric poetry, that asthe act of composition and performance begins, the skilIed poet succeeds indrawing upon and capturing a divine power, one that enables poets everywhere tocreate and perform their work. 13

11. Parmenides' Fr. 1.1-5 and the Vernacular of Greek Lyric Poetry

1. 11t1tOt 'tat JlE q>EpOUatv ...1tEJl1tOV ...äyouaat. .. äpJla 'tt'tatvouaat, KoUpat B'bBov TtYEJlOVEUov-'The mares that carry me...were sending... leading...pullingthe chariot, and maidens were leading the way.'

Pindar' s choice of the chariot simile in 01. vi was probably inspired by the factthat the honoree on that occasion had won the mule chariot race at Olympia. Butthe simile of the Muses' chariot appears often elsewhere in his poems: 'being ledalong in the Muses' chariot' (avayEta8at. .. EV Motaav Btq>pcp, 01. ix 80-81);'the Muses' chariot starting forth' (€aau'tat. ..Motaatov äpJla, Isth. viii 62-62);'having yoked the four-horsed chariot of the Pierian Muses' (E~EU~EV äpJlalltEptBrov 'tE'tpaopov, Pyth. x 65); 'the men of old who mounted the chariot ofthe golden-wreathed Muses' (q>&'tE<;, Ot xpuaaJl1tuKrovl E<; Btq>pov MotauvEßatvov, Isth. ii 1-2); and of 'harnessing a song of praise' (EyKroJltOV ~EU~at

JlEAO<;, Nem. i 7; cf. Isth. viii 61; Frs. 52h, 10-14; 124a; 140b). Similarly, Bac­chylides: 'White-armed Calliope, stay your well-built chariot. .. and sing now'(AEuKroAEvE KaAAt61ta/a'tuaov EU1totll'tov äpJlcxl aU'tou ... üJlvllaov, Epin. v176-78); 'From Piera Urania has sent me (€1tEJl1tEV) a golden throne laden withfamous hymns' (11); and Timotheus: 'After Orpheus ...Terpander yoked thePierian Muse to poems ten in number' (E1t! 'tql BEKal ~EU~E Jlouaav EV cPBat<;, 19,234 ff.). The complete naturalness of the idiom is shown by the fact that althoughmodern modes of transportation differ enormously from those known to thearchaic poet we still employ transportation terminology in order to characterizeour thought processes.14 Parrnenides' reference to the horses and charioteers who

13 In a wonderful simile (Ion, 533d ff.) Plato likens the poet's 'chain of inspiration' to aseries ofmagnetized iron rings; each 'link'-from the immortals, to the poet, to the individual members of theaudience-receives a divine 'charge' and passes it on.

14 As when we speak of those who 'allow their thoughts and feelings to run away with them', orwho 'get carried away by their emotions', or enter into astate of rapture or 'transport'; similarly'flights of fancy or imagination', 'vehicle of expression', etc. Parmenides' reference to 'mares' alsoreflected current conditions; as Taran 1965, 9 noted, mares were the horses of choice for chariot rac­ing. Since mares were valued for their speed, their appearance here-along with the references to

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sent and led him by pulling hirn in a chariot along a divine roadway would thenhave had a familiar ring to the ears of the members of his contemporary audi­ence-as a reference to the immortal powers of inspiration routinely invoked­or yoked-by the poet as he is sets out along 'the pathway of song' .15 Sounderstood, the opening sentence of Parmenides' proem would have served anobvious purpose: it would have signalled his audience that he-Parmenides, noless than any other poet-sage-teacher, had gained access to the divine powers thatguide the creative imagination.

Parmenides departs from convention, however, when he states (at 1.9) that themaidens who led hirn on his journey were the Heliades or 'Daughters of the Sun' .The significance of this feature remains a matter of debate. Perhaps (as Deich­gräber, Fränkel and others have held), the reference to these powers of illumina­tion is meant to reflect the fact that the business at hand is the acquisition ofknowledge-an 'illumination of the mind', a truth that has recently 'dawned' onParmenides (rather than acelebration of virtue, wealth, political rule, or athleticvictory). Alternatively (and I suspect more likely), the reference to these powersof the sun in Fr. 1 foreshadows the important roles to be played by fire, light, andsun in Parmenides' cosmology (cf. 8.56,9.1-3, 10.2-3,12.1-2), in the same wayin which the goddess who teaches the youth is probably also the goddess who isspoken of in similar tenns at Fr. 12.3 as ÖUiJ.lffiV ll1tav'tu KußEpVat-'a goddesswho steers all things' .16 Parmenides' assertion that the Heliades 'were leading hisway' might then have been meant as an assertion that his thoughts and forms ofexpression on that occasion were grounded in reality-the figures who hadplayed the leading role in that act of creative thinking were the powers that mIedand ordered the natural world.

2. öcrov 't' E1tt eUJ.lo~ l1(avot-'as far as heart and mind might reach ... '

Early Greek expressions for faculties of thought and feeling resist a simple

'hastening' and 'pulling at full stretch', the screeching noise of the wheels, and the glowing of theaxle--eontributes to the overall impression of enormous speed with which the guiding powers trans­ported hirn (thereby providing another indication of the greatness of their power).

15 On the usual reckoning, Alcman, Archilochus, Sappho, Solon, Theognis, and Xenophaneswould have been composing their poems before the period of Parmenides' mature years (the secondquarter of the 5th century BC); Bacchylides, Pindar, and Timocrean would have been his rough con­temporaries; while Anacreon, Empedocles, and Timotheus would have overlapped with the laterperiod of his life during their younger years.

16 See Verdenius 1949 and Coxon 1986, 231 ff. I am indebted to an unpublished paper by AndreLaks for the view that the proem prefigures the cosmology of the doxa section of Parmenides' poemin a nUITlber of different ways. It would turn out on this reading that the theory Parmenides presentedin the doxa section was as important a part of his teachings as the main or aletheia account, and Ibelieve that is how we should read it (i.e., even if cosmology cannot attain the degree of reliable truthachievable along the 'it is' way of thinking about what there is, it can still be worth pursuing andattaining-just as many later philosophers would assign a high value to empirical knowledge even if00 cootiogeot statement ever qualified as a logical truth). The thesis that the contrast between thealetheia and doxa sectioos turns on a distinction between apodeictic and non-apodeictic truths hasbeen defended by Finkelberg 1988, 66-67.

10

one-to-one correspondence with modem psychological tenninology.17 8uJl6~ isfirst and foremost a conative tenn, designating that faculty within a person thatprompts action by means of desire, appetite, or emotion. Snell commented: 'noosmay be said generally to be in charge of intellectual matters, and thymos of thingsemotional' (1953, 12). Accordingly, it is not uncommon to find eUJl6~ translatedhere as 'desire' , 'heart' , 'will', or 'impulse', and for the whole phrase to be readas 'the horses that carry me as far as my heart might desire ' (lit. 'to as far as heartmight reach'). But pretty clearly E<ptlCVEoJlat cannot actually have meant 'desire' ,and the idea of one' s desire or will reaching toward adestination is not entirelyperspicuous.

But since the goddess is about to speak of learning, thinking, knowing, reason­ing, thought, mind, and judgement, it is entirely possible that eUJl6~ serves here,as it does occasionally elsewhere (cf. LSJ s.v. eUJl6~ 116), to designate that in usby which (or in which) we think, know, and can be instructed-in short, that tosome extent eUJl6~ corresponds with our tenns 'mind' , 'consciousness', or 'con­scious spirit'. (Cf. /1. ii 409: 'he knew these things in his eUJl6~'; x 49: 'thinkingthese things in his eUJl6~'; Ode xxi 218 'knowing weIl and being convinced inyour eUJl6~'). It was, after all, mortal eUJl6~ rather than v6o~ that Archilochusclaimed was 'such as Zeus may bring to hirn for the day, for he thinks such thingsas he meets with' (Fr. 70), and it was his own eUJl6~ rather than his v6o~ thatArchilochus commanded to 'know what sort of rhythm holds mankind in itssway' (Fr. 66).

8uJ.1o<;, moreover, is commonly spoken of as that in us which can receiveinstruction (e.g., from a deity) and prompt the expression of one's thought: 'NowI will prophesy to you as the immortals put it in my eUJl6~' (Od. i 200); 'for tohim [the minstrel Demodocus] above all others has the god granted skill in song,to give delight in whatever way his eUJl6~ prompts hirn to speak' (Od. viii 44­45); 'but here there is a kindly eUJl6~, a sweet Muse, and sweet wine in Boeotiancups' (Bacchylides, Fr. 6); 'for in some way my eUJl6~ prompts me to say' (Pin­dar, 01. iii 38), etc. Each of these elements-calling on the Muse, eUJl6~ as theagent of poetic thought, even the travelling eUJl6~-appears in Pindar's Nemeaniii 26-28 when he asks:

...8UJlE, tiva 7tPO~ aAAOBa7taväKpav EJlOV 7tA6ov 7tapaJlEißEat;AiaKep OE <paJlt "lEVEt tE Motoav <pEpEtV ...

. . .Spirit, to what foreign headlandAre you turning aside my voyage?To the kinsman Aeacus, 1command you, and carry the Muse...

Parrnenides' initial reference to the powers that carry hirn 'as far as eUJl6~ mightreach' may not, then, have been the somewhat idle remark that when he starts to

17 O'Brien 1967, 42 comments: 'many Greek words for faculties and activities of soul, as theyare used before Plato, defy classification according to our categories. The intellect, the will, the char­acter, and the emotions all seem to have no c1ear boundaries for the early Greeks' .

11

think he is carried as far 'as (his) heart might desire" but the more pointed claimthat the powers that repeatedly 18 guide his thoughts and forms of expression areable to take him as far as (any) mind can reach.

3. Il' E~ aÖov ßlloav 1tOAu<Pllllov ... öaillovo~-'(and)set me down on a goddess'roadway rich in song... '

Parmenides now adds three more indicators of the provenance of his account:(1) he was brought to a roadway 'of a goddess'; (2) he was 'set down' on it; and(3) it was, in some sense, a roadway 'of much, or rich in song or voice'. Eachterm reinforces, as it is reinforced by, the others; and all three serve to confirmthe expectation created in line one: Parmenides' 8u1l6~ has been granted accessto the usual powers of inspiration.

The use of ßf10av (as noted by Deichgräber, Fränkel, and Heitsch) echoes theuse of ßaivoo and related forms by earlier poets to speak of 'being set upon' or'mounting' the official place of song (cf. Hesiod' s reference to the Muses ofHelicon who 'first set me in the way of clear song'-Ev8a IlE to 1tprotov At'yupf1~

E1tEßlloav aOlÖf1~, Works and Days 659; as well as the ßUOOIlEV in 01. vi andEßalvov in Isth. ii quoted above). As we have seen, entering into the process ofpoetic composition and performance could be characterized as being brought to,set down on, and travelling along the pathway of song (cf. the KEAEU8<p, aÖ6v,and 1tUAa~ ÜIlVOlV of 01. vi, and 'This was the theme which the bards of oldfound for their broad way-oÖov alla~lt6v,Nem. vi 56).19 It was also commonfor poets to pay homage to the goddess to whom they were indebted for their cre­ative instincts and choices. Here, the aö6~ on which Parmenides is set down is 'ofa goddess' not in thc sense of a 'journey' in which she brings hirn along with her,but rather 'hers' in so far as the road he takes reaches all the way to her house (cf.lKuvrov T,IlEtEpoV ö&) where the instruction session proper will take place.2o

In the same vein, the aÖo<; 1tOAU<Pllll0<; is best read not so much as a 'famous','renowned', or 'much spoken of' road (as proposed by Burnet, DK, Guthrie,KRS, Mansfeld, and LSJ 111), nor as a 'way of much discourse' or 'much assert­ing' or 'much speaking' (as in Coxon, Deichgräber, and Mourelatos), nor even as

18 As is suggested by the use of the present tense fonn <pEpOUcrtV, in contrast with the imperfects1tEJ.J.1tOV, <pE poJlllV, <pEpOV, and l,YEJlOVEUOV that point toward that period in the past when Parmenideswas gaining the insights he now brings before his listeners. Although not conclusive, the use of thepresent in the first line (in reference to the powers that guide Parmenides' thinking generally) pro­vides some reason to take öcrov t' E1tt eUJlo~ l.Kavol in conjunction with <pEpOUcrlV rather than with1tEJl1tOV; i.e., as a characterization of the capacity of these powers of thought generally, rather than asa characterization of the powers they had on some occasion in the past.

19 As Tareln 1965, 30-31 commented: 'That it was customary to talk of the way of song and of thechariot in a metaphorical sense is proved by the parallel in Pindar and others'; cf. also the 'paths ofsong' taught to bards by the Muse at Od. viii 479-481; Bacchylides, 19, 1; Pindar, Pyth. xi 38-40; etc.

20 As explained by Diels 1897,46-47 and Tareln 1965,12, and at sonle length, 1977,656. WhileoÖo~ can also mean the 'joumey' or 'way' itself (as at line 5 when the maidens are said to 'lead theoÖo~'), only a road or pathway (of either a literal or a figurative sort) could be naturally characterizedas (1) what one could be 'set down on', (2) what could 'carry a knowing man', and (3) something 'on'or 'along which' a youth could be carried.

12

a 'sagacious' or 'knowledge bestowing road' (of Taran, Fränkel, and Jaeger), butrather as a 'road or roadway richly endowed in song' (or 'rich in voices') in pre­cisely the same sense in which Homer speaks of a minstrel as 'richly endowedwith song' (1tOA:u<Pl111o<; &OtOo<;, Ode xxii 376), and of an assembly that containedmany individuals as 'many-voiced' (Od. ii 150). The pathway Parmenides wasset down upon was 'rich' or 'well-stocked' in songs or voices in just the samesense in which Alcman asked, 'Corne, clear-voiced Muse ofmany songs' (M&oaAiYl1a 1tOAUllllEAE<;, 14), Pindar alluded to the 'well-voiced Pierian Muses'(Eu<pmvc.ov ... I1tEpioc.ov, Isth. i 64), and Empedocles alluded to a 'much-remem­bering Muse' (1tOAullvTtOtl1 ... llouoa, Fr. 3). Through each of the three termsPannenides employs in this second line he asserts but a single thesis: the wayalong which his heart and mind travelled in conceiving and composing hisaccount was the usual, exceptionally rich, divine source of poetic inspiration.

4.11 ... <pEpEt ElOota <p&ta... tn <PEpolll1v· tn yap llE 1tOAu<ppaOtot <pEpOV t1t1tOt­'(the road) which...carries a skilIed man...on it 1was carried, for on it very infor­mative mares carried me'

As the most common and flexible Greek 'knowing' verb, otOa could designateeither a knowledge consisting in simple perceptual awareness, or knowledge offacts or general truths, or the simple possession of thoughts and feelings, orknowledge in the form of special skills and practical 'know-how'. It has some­times been suggested that we will make the best sense of the meaning of ElOm<;here if we view Parmenides' words in the special context of early Greek mysteryreligion: either (as in Diels and others who have followed his lead) by reading itas a veiled reference to 'a knowing one' about to become 'an initiate' in the mys­teries,21 or (as in Guthrie 1969, ii 7-11) by bearing in mind the traditional figureof the shaman who was believed capable of acquiring a vast knowledge by trav­elling throughout all space and time.

But one sort knowledge routinely mentioned by the poets of Parmenides' timewas the special expertise they themselves possessed: 'For our expertise (oo<pil1)is better than the strength of men and horses' (Xenophanes Fr. 2); 'I do not thinkthat any maiden...will have such skill (oo<piav) at any future time' (Sappho 56);'Heaven grant that I ... may be foremost in skill (i.e., of song-1tpo<pavtovoo<pi~) among Greeks in every land' (Pindar 01. i 116; cf. oo<po<; as the poet'sskill at 01. xiv 7; Nem. vii 23; Pyth. i 41; and Fr. 52h.18-20); 'another one earns

21 Diels, Burkert, and G6mez-Lobo have based their reading of 1.3 on a number of ancient textsin which initiates into the mysteries are referred to as 'knowing ones' (e.g., Andocides, de mys!. 30: ilyap ßaoavo~ÖElVT11tapa 'tOt~ EiöoOlV) along with (in Burkert's version) the linguistic thesis thatwhen Eiöc.O~ appears without an object it must either serve as the object of a verb (e.g., 1tPO~ Eiöo'ta~

AEyElV-'to speak to the knowing ones') or else possess the special meaning of 'the intiate' ('derEingeweihte'). But the usage of Eiöc.O~ fails to fit Burkert's thesis (cf. Rep. 337d: 'what other penaltyis to be suffered by one who does not know (1tPOollKEl1taOXElV 'tip Jlll Eiöo'tl) ... than to learn from theone who does know (Jla8EtV 1tapa 'tot> Eiöo'to~)?'; or the various 'skill' uses of the participle as at 11.i 608: iöuinoOl1tpa1tiöEool). Thus, while 'an initiate' would certainly count as one kind of Eiöro~

<pc.O~, that special meaning would not be compulsory.

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his living in the gifts of the Olympian Muses, skilled in the measures of theeharrning art (iJlEp,t11<; oo<pill<; JlE'tpOV E1tlO'tUJlEVO<;)' (Soion 13.52); 'I am skilled(E1tto'taJlEvo<;) in the lovely gift of the Muses' (Arehiloehus Fr. 1, ef. otÖaö18upaJlßov in Fr. 120); 'for I sing graeeful songs and know how to speak graee­ful words (XapiEv'ta Ö' otÖa AE~at, Anaereon 374); 'The truly expert poet(oo<po<;) is he who knows (or is skilled in) many things by nature' (0 1tOAAaEiÖm<; <pu~, Pindar 01. ii 86).22

In the basie sense of the term, 1tOAu<ppao'tol horses would be 'mueh-indieat­ing' or 'very informative' (rather than, as is often suggested, 'wise', 'diseerning',or 'very understanding'), as we may infer from imv Kat 1tE<ppaÖE Jlu80v-'goand make known this word' (Od. viii 142); ynv <ppaÖaooE-'he made known thelimits of the land' (Pindar Nem. ii 26); the noun <ppao't~p-'teller, expounder';as well as the adjeetive <ppao'ttKo<;-'indieative, expressive' (LSJ).23 The faetthat these transporting powers are eharaeterized as 'very informative' eonfirmsthat (beeause it explains why) the relevant knowledge here is the poet's expertisein erafting and expressing his ideas in verse. When, therefore, Parrnenides speaksof travelling along 'the song-rieh pathway of the goddess whieh bears a skilledman... ' he asserts as true of hirnself what his audienee would have assumed to bethe ease generally: that the ereative abilities of the poet derive ultimately from adivine souree; and when in the anaphorie 't11 <PEpoJlllV at 1.4 Parmenides makes apoint of asserting that he travelled along the very same pathway, he links his ownereative efforts to the same rieh souree.

5. Ka'tu 1tav't' ä(o)'tll-'down to every town'

In a setting in whieh eaeh one of a set of surrounding expressions- 'mares' ,'ehariot', 'being earried, 'being led', 'being escorted', 'being set down', 'mindand spirit reaehing', 'divine roadway', 'rlehly endowed in song', 'very informa­tive', and 'skilled man'-contributed in mutually reinforeing ways to making thesingle point that the words those in Parmenides' audienee were about to hear hadbeen inspired by the usual immortal powers of song, we might expeet that the oneremaining element would fill out and eomplete that idea rather than introduee an

22 For otÖa with the meaning of 'cunning , or 'skilIed' : LSJ s.v. EtÖro BI; Ebeling, EtÖro, 1y (per­itus sum uti possum); Cunliffe, EtÖro (8); as for example: 'Hephaestus by his cunning wits (iÖUtn<H1tpa1ttÖEaat) built a palace for each one', Il. i 608; 'he skillfully (döro~) applied soothing drugs', /1.iv 218; 'one weIl skilIed in aH manner of craft (1taall~/ EU Eiön aoq>tll~)4l,Il. xv 412; 'a man weHskilIed in boxing (Eiöro~ 1tuYJlaxi'll~)', Il. xxiii 665.

23 Cf. also Ebeling 1963, s.v. q>pa~ro I, indico; and Cunliffe 1963,4: 'to make known, communi­cate'. LSJ equates 1tOA:uq>paatO~with 1toA.uq>paÖll~-'verywise'; cf. Tanin 1965, 12, and many oth­ers, and Pindar's allusion to the 'skilled' or 'knowing' (E,1ttatavtat) mules in 01. vi establishes thecomplete appropriateness of the idiom. The choice between the two translations is neither large nor ofcritical importance, but there is still some reason to opt for the idea of communication 0/ knowledgehere. Parmenides claims to have been carried on the road along which an Eiöro~ q>ro~ travels; butunless he has knowledge (and not simply his guides), he cannot claim to qualify as Eiöro~. So not onlyis the basic meaning of the phrad- stern 'show' ,'tell', or 'indicate' (rather than 'know' or 'be wise'),but it is important that these figurative horses convey knowledge rather than simply have the knowl­edge themselves.

14

entirely novel or alien feature. 24 And, in fact, 'a roadway of a goddess which car­ries a skilIed man down to every town', has a natural meaning in this setting:because poets everywhere draw from their inspiration the same immortal powers,one may speak of a single divine pathway of song which brings the skilIed poetto every city or town.

Ode xvii 382ff. establishes that singers were spoken of as travellers from anearly date. Who, asks the swineherd Eumaeus, would one expect to be visitingfrom abroad other than:

... trov Ot ÖllJltoEPYOt eaot,Jlavttv 11 illt l1pa KaKrov 11 tEKtoVa Öouprov,11 Kat 8E01ttV aotÖov, ö KEV tEP1tTIOtv aEtÖrov;OUtOt yap KAlltot yE ßpotrov E1t' a1tEipova yatav .

.. .one ofthose masters in some public craft,A seer or a healer of ills, or a worker in woodOr even a divine singer, who gives delight with his song?For these among mortals are welcome over the boundlessearth.

In the later fantasy Contest ojHorner and Hesiod, Homer is hirnself described asa traveller:

1totlloavta yap tov Mapyttllv ~'OJlllpoV 1tEptEPXE08at Kata1tOAtV Pa'l'cpöouvta...For after he had composed the Margites, Homer went aroundfrom city to city as a rhapsode ... (315)

When the rhapsode of Plato's Ion claims the expertise of a general simply on thebasis of his knowledge of martial passages in Homer, Socrates asks:

... pa'l'cpÖEte; JlEV 1tEpttrov tOte; uEAAll0t, Otpatll'YEte; ö' öu;

... and yet you go about Greece performing as a rhapsode, andnot as a general? (541b13-14)

Similarly, the author of the Hyrnn to Delian Apollo refers to the life lived in ser­vice to Apollo, the god of poetry, in the terms of travelling to cities:

l,JlEtC; ö' UJlEtEpOV KAEOC; OtOOJlEV, ÖOOOV E1t' atavav8pro1trov otpE<poJlE08a 1tOAEtC; EU VatEtarooac;.And we will carry your renown as far over the earth

24 As, e.g., in Guthrie's (1969, ii 7) account: '[The youth] is crossing the sky in the sun's ownchariot, and this path, since it traverses the whole world, naturally carries hirn 'over all cities'. Kat&'can mean 'on' or 'on top of (although not quite 'over' in the sense in which the sun passes 'over­head' in the heavens (which would be u1tep as in Xenophanes Fr. 31 and Heraclitus Allegoriae 44.5where the sun is said to move u1tep the earth). Some support for Gutluie's reading is provided by thefact that the mares are led (in v. 9) by the Heliades, the daughters of the Sun. But a claim to havereceived knowledge from the universally recognized sources of inspiration would have enjoyed farwider acceptance than would claiming to have gained it during a trip to the (all-seeing and all-know­ing) Sun. Similarly, if we emend to a(Hvll-'which leads a knowing man unscathed wherever hegoes', we can only try to imagine why Parmenides would have supposed (happy thought) that a god­dess protected all those who had knowledge.

15

As we go round to the well-placed cities of men. (174-75)25Xenophanes employs the vivid metaphor 'of tossing about' (perhaps a referenceto overseas travel) in order to characterize his long career as a poet and adviser:

~ÖT\ ö' E1t'tU 't' Eaol Kat E~~KOV't' EVlaU'tOtßA:rlo'tpt~oV'tE<; EJl~V <ppov'ttÖ' av' (HEAAuÖa rflvAlready there are seven and sixty yearsTossing about my counsel26 throughout the Greek land (Fr. 8)

These references to the poet' s exercise of his craft in terms of travelling tocities and towns reflect the historie reality that for an extended period of Greekhistory poets routinely travelled with their latest creations to various cities andtowns in the ancient world.27 A successful poet of Pannenides' own era mighthave been invited by a city to serve as poet/adviser-in-residence (the Spartanpractice mentioned by Aelian at V.B. 12.50), or to honor one of its citizens, or totake part in its festivals and poetic competitions (as depicted at Plato' s Ion 530a).Pindar prays that his Muse might 'bring her tongue to the town of Protogeneia'(<pEpOl<; ÖE npOO'toyEVEta<; /&O'tEl yAroooav, Ol. ix 41-42); and Bacchylides asksthe Muse Clio to 'steer the ship of his understanding to Aegina, there to adorn agod-built city (1tOA1V)' (39). Xenophanes' Fr. 45 gives us the more literal versionofhis Fr. 8:

EYro ö' EJlau'tov EK 1tOA10<; 1tOA1V <pEpOOV EßA"O'tPl~OV.

I tossed about, bearing myself from city to city. (Fr. 45)The testimonia depicting Empedocles as 'a traveller to various cities' (A 2, fromthe Suda: E1t~lEl 'tU<; 1tOAE1<;; A 18, from Philostratus: eooßEl 1tEpt 'tU<; 'trov (EA­A~VOOV ayulu<; üJlvou<; ~uv't18Et<;) are confinned in the words of his own highlyornate28 philosophical poem:

As soon as I arrive in flourishing towns (tKOOJlal E<; &o·tEa), I

25 Cf. Keats, 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer':'Much have I travelI' d in the realms of gold,And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;Round many western islands have I beenWhich bards in fealty to Apollo hold. (1-4)

26 For <ppovtic; as 'counsei' cf. Aeschylus, Persians 140-143: <ppovtioa KEOVnV Katßa8ußouAoV/ 800J,1E8a (Lesher, 1992,69-70).

27 For 1tavta (äcrtll) as 'every' (town), cf. Od. ii 55: l1J,1ata 1tavta-'every day'. Burnet 1930,172n, who assumed that N actually read äcrtll, came close to drawing this conclusion when he under­stood the phrase to mean 'through all the towns' and understood the phrase to be Parmenides' way ofreferring to hirnself as 'an itinerant philosopher, like the sophists of the next generation'. The impor­tance of the poet' s travels in the emergence of Panhellenic standards of truth and excellence is dis­cussed in Nagy 1990, chs. 2-3.

28 Cf. 'And [you], know in the way that the assurances given by our muse urge, by dividing updiscourse in your heart ... '(4). 'And you maiden muse of the white arms, much-remembering/ Ibeseech you: what it is right for ephermeral creatures to hear,lsend [to me] driving your well-reinedchariot (1tEJ,11tE... eAaoucr' EU-nV10V äpJ,1a) from the halls of piety' (3). 'For if, immortal muse, for thesake of any ephemeral creature,l<it has pleased you> to let our concerns pass through yourthought,lanswer my prayers again now Calliopeia,/ as I reveal a good discourse about the blessedgods (aJ,1<pt 8E&V J,1aKaprov aya80v Aoyov EJ,1<paivovtt, 131; Inwood trans.).

16

am revered by all ... (Fr. 1, Inwood trans.)To sum up: when Parmenides prefaced his novel philosophical account by

speaking of being carried in a chariot pulled by horses led by immortal chario­teers along a song-rich roadway of a goddess, he was speaking in the vernacularof Greek lyric poetry in order to explain to his audience the nature of the pro­cesses of creative thinking that led hirn to his discovery. And when he describedthat roadway as one 'which carries a knowing or skilIed man down to everytown' , he adopted a common way of referring to the poet' s exercise of his craft inorder to assert that the powers that had inspired hirn were the same ones thatenable poets everywhere to create and perfonn their works.

We should note that the goddess' assurance (at 1.27) that 'it is no evil fatewhich has sent you to journey along this road (for it is far from the beaten path ofmen)' does not contradict her earlier characterization of that road as one 'whichcarries a skilIed man to every town' . Her later remark applies not to all poets gen­erally but only to the youth, Parmenides hirnself. And, as is clear from 1tu'to<;­'the trodden path' (from 1ta'tEoo- 'to trample under foot'), the point of hercomment is not to distinguish one particular road from another, but rather toexpress how far along the route of inspired thought the youth has advanced.29 Allinspired poets travel the same divine pathway, but Parmenides depicts himself­with good reason-as having advanced in his understanding far beyond any pointpreviously reached by mortal men. (Empedocles subsequently distinguishes hisphilosophical proposal from those of his predecessors-including Parmenides' ­in the very same manner [Fr. 2]: 'mortal cunning has certainly pushed no far­ther' .)

II!. Reason and the Muse

It may be worth considering briefly how Parmenides, of all people, could haveelected to preface his presentation of a set of powerful philosophical argumentswith a claim to have tapped the usual powers of poetic composition and perfor­mance. Not only would versification and logical argument appear to be quite dif­ferent enterprises, but the suggestion that Parmenides acquired his knowledgethrough divine revelation appears to be at odds with the tenns of his own episte­mology. When, for example, in Fr. 7 his goddess explains how knowledge of thetrue way of speaking and thinking about 'to EOV is to be achieved, she directs theyouth:

...KptVat ÖE Aoyep 1tOAUÖllPtV EAEyXoVE~ E~E8EV P1l8Ev'ta.

... to decide by means of discourse the much-con­tested testing spoken by me (7.5-6)

This decision appears to involve the same binary choice stated at the outset of Fr.2: between (on the one hand, ft ~Ev, 2.3) thinking and saying only 'it is', and (on

29 See Tanin 1965, 16, with the reference to the study by Kullman in which 1tato~ is shown torefer not to existing roads or pathways, but rather to the 'step' or 'wanderings' of men throughout aregion.

17

the other, nÖ', 2.5) allowing that in some respects 'it is not' might be true. Thegrounds upon which that choice will be made appear to be provided, at least inlarge part, by the 'multiple contests' carried out along the length of Fr. 8, as aseries of philosophical reflections on possible forms of 'not being' yields unmis­takable crl)j..lu'tu or 'indicators' that what exists is ungenerated, indestructible,whole, single, and complete-in other words, that 'it is' passes all the tests and istrue in every possible respect. In short, it seems clear that the youth acquires hisset of completely persuasive truths-in other words, knowledge-about thenature of 'what is' through an extended critical review of all the possibleoptions. 3D But if Parmenides supposed that knowledge emerged from a process ofrational reflection along these lines, why would he have proclaimed his own dis­covery in the terms of a revelation from a deity?

It may be of some help to note that the figure of the Muse served several differ­ent functions in early Greek poetry (see Campbell 1983, ch. 8; Davison 1968, ch.13). On occasion the Muse (addressed either as 'Muse' or 'goddess' or by nameas Calliope, Urania, Clio, Terpsichore) would be invoked at or near the outset ofthe poet' s work as a way of assuring his audience that the information it was get­ting was accurate and credible. Thus the second invocation of the Muses in Iliad11:

Tell me who were the commanders of the Greeks and their chiefs.I could not tell or name their number,Not if I had ten tongues and mouths,And an untiring voice and a heart of bronze,Unless the Olympian Muses, the daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus,Call to my mind all those who came to Troy. (487-492)

Bacchylides (15.47) and Pindar (Pyth. iv 70) request similarly specific informa­tion from their Muses. But on occasion the Muse might be spoken of as thesource of the poet' s artistic sensibilities, or skills in versification- 'the gift ofsong'-rather than as a guarantor of the truth of his or her words (Homer, Od.viii 481; Hesiod Theogony, 104; Archilochus, 1; Solon, 13,51-52; Bacchylides19, 1-4; Theognis 6, 250; Pindar, 01. ix 28-29; xiv 3-7; Frs. 52h, 198a; etc.).Alcman (30) invokes the Muse as an aid to his successful performance, and Bac­chylides calls for a libation to the Muses (PMG 941) in the same pious spirit inwhich Xenophanes directs his fellow symposiasts to begin their celebratorysongs with a libation and prayer to the deities (Fr. 1, 15-20). And Timocrean(728) and Bacchylides (3, 90-92; 9, 85-87) invoke the Muses in order to ensurethat their songs and the farne of their subjects will be carried throughout Greece.

We can safely rule out the possibility that Parmenides' allusion to the goddesswho inspired his poem reflected his personal opinion that anything uttered inverse form necessarily qualified as truth and wisdom. Extended warfare againstthe poets' claims to wisdom would not be waged until the time of Plato's Ion andRepublic, but Heraclitus (Frs. 56, 57, 104,) and Xenophanes (Frs. 10-12) had

30 For a defense of this 'peirastic' view of Parmenidean knowledge, see Lesher forthcoming.

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already attacked (respectively) both the wisdom of the popular poets and thetruthfulness of their stories. In his Fr. 34 Xenophanes also articulated the basicdistinction between 'saying what is true' (succeeding in 'speaking of what hasbeen brought to pass') and 'knowing the clear and certain truth'. Even Hesiod'sMuses conceded that they knew 'how to make many false things seem like thetruth', and Solon (29) and Pindar (Nem. vii 20-24) admitted that poets were capa­ble of lies and deceit. When the goddess asserts (at Fr. 8.50-53), 'Here I stop mytrustworthy speech to you and thought about truth; from here onward learn mor­tal beliefs, listening to the deceitful ordering of my words'), it is clear that Par­menides could not have believed that being able to compose in verse form was aguarantee of either truth or knowledge.31

But, as has on occasion been suggested,32 Parmenides might weIl havebelieved that his ability to conceive and give expression to his extraordinary the­ory, as weIl as the prospects of its being grasped and appreciated by others, restedto some extent in the laps of divine powers. The specific idea that one' s voue; orintelligence was itself the 'god in each of us' will later become a poetic andphilosophical topos,33 but the broader view that the exercise of our creative pow­ers might also involve the helping hand of a deity appears as early as Phemius'striking boast to Odysseus (Od. xxii 347):

U\)'toÖ{ÖUlC'tOe; ö' Ei~i, 8EOe; ÖE ~ot EV <ppEcrtv ol~ue;

1tUv'to{ue; EvE<pucrEv.I am self-taught; a god implanted all sorts of songs in mybreast.

On this view, the creative achievements of a poet-even one 'gifted' in philo­sophical argument-could be credited to a combination of mortal and divineefforts. While there is no direct evidence that Parmenides subscribed to such a

31 KoaJ..lOv ... E1tEOOV, as recently pointed out by Floyd 1992,262-263, is an 'artful arrangement ofwords'; Le., verse (cf. Solon Fr. 1.2: KOaJ..lOV E1tEOOV epo-nv av't' ayopnC;-'an ornament of words­song instead of prose'). Whether Parmenides chose verse, as Floyd claims, because it facilitated hisspeaking in contrary fashion within the two parts of his account, seems to me uncertain, but even ifParmenides did not view poetic speech as the medium of choice for deception, it seems clear hebelieved it had that capacity.

32 Verdenius 1942, 67 comments: 'The very fact that the goddess is anonymous and remainsabstract (frag. 1,22 8Ea) shows that Parmenides considered the truth revealed to him also as a discov­ery of his own.' Similarly Bowra 1937, 106: 'In fact she is to be anonymous. She is a symbol for thepoet' s personal experience and his own discovery of the truth. This experience is unique to hirn, andtherefore he can hardly attribute it to a goddess who is shared by other men'. But this conclusionseems more secure than the anonymity premiss from which it is derived. Parmenides could have alsobeen referring to the exercise of his own powers even if his goddess had been named and had simi­larly inspired others. Indeed, it is clear from 1.1-5 that Parmenides supposed that the powers that werecarrying him had carried others. Dodds 1951, chs. 1,3 provides a useful discussion ofthe sorts of cir­cumstances in which the occurrence of a thought or feeling might be thought to represent the inter­vention a deity.

33 Cf. Diogenes of Apollonia, Frs. 4, 5; Aristotle De an. 403a; De gen. an. 736b27; NE 1177­1178; Diogenes Laertius, vii 135, 138; Menander (Meineke 434) following Euripides Fr. 1018: ~O

vouC; yap ftJ..l&v Ea'ttV EV EKaa'tq> 8EOC;.

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view it would explain how he eould have eonsistently regarded his highly rigor­ous eritique of the various ways available for thinking and speaking about 'to EOVas a set of very persuasive truths onee imparted to his 8uJlo<; by a friendly god­dess.34

Department of ClassiesUniversity of MarylandCollege Park MD 20742

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